Most discussions on this game are very old. I read that in original version armors balance was a mess and heavy armors were pretty much useless because of marginal damage reduction in second half of the game and severe penalties vs energy weapons enemies. Was anything changed in DC version? I started California part of the game and don't want to waste money if it's better to run naked...

It's not better to run naked, but it is generally better to use light armor instead of heavy armor. I've only played the DC, so I can't really comment on the original edition of the game.

Light armor sacrifices some armor rating, but heavy armor imposes movement penalties that typically worsen as the armor rating increases. That extra protection isn't much use if you don't have enough movement to get to cover and fire your weapon.

Long time since my last run of standard or DC editions. To be honest, I always had a mixed use of armor types to cover all the pros and cons of both worlds, and I don't remember having a big issue with one or the other. If you don't want to risk money you can use only the heavy armors that you got by free (I think they are up to three sets).

However, for the DC on last difficult setting, leaser weapons are so broken that there is not difference if you are. You will melt on your own juices.

usually you want to wear the heavies armors for your gunners, since they don't really have to move much. Your snipers, assault rifles, can pretty much hit anything in sight so you aren't going to be moving them around a lot. So throw on the heavies armors you can get.

Your melee/unarmed, etc characters that need to move around, you want to make sure to wear armor that doesn't reduce combat movement. They are the team that have to move, get across the map to foes, reach snipers in the back. They need maximum movement to get into place, so just regular armor with no penalties.

But the way armor works, you want the strongest you can get, so it can reduce damage from guns/attacks. It won't do much vs energy weapons, but you will notice when people are trying to offload shotguns, smgs, etc into people wearing power armor and perks. 10 armor vs a 6 armor shotgun.. going to reduce the damage very much.

SO there you go. If your chararacters dont' need to move about the map, throw on the strongest you can wear to reduce damage. Your sniper isn't going to be running across the map to get to a foe, his bullets will be doing that.